'Like a drop in the ocean': negotiating transitions back to paid work and the impact of policy on managing work-family life

This presentation is based on a longitudinal qualitative study and reflects on how primary carers make decisions about coordinating their paid and unpaid work after parental leave. Interviews were conducted with 27 women employed in the Victorian higher education sector and retail industry, exploring the temporal dimension of paid work-family arrangements and plans from before, during and after parental leave. Participants convey concerns about the logistical, gendered and emotional dynamics of combining work and life, the cost of and access to childcare and the management of domestic work so they may return to paid work. These concerns provide a foundation for debates on the relationship between policy and the lived experience of navigating parental leave, gender relations and work-care arrangements. While the debate has focused largely on the workplace and policy initiatives that provide support enabling a primary carer to integrate their multiple roles and demands, there still requires a high degree of negotiation and creativity in individual and household contexts. What this means for social practice and change in the household and community remains an equally vexed issue for family-work balance